Farewell, My Friend
by Kyrieath
Summary: Yuan-centric, just after Rodyle's Ranch.Yuan reflects on a lost comrade. First person point of view, and NOT a pairing fic. Spoilers, naturally. One Shot.


Author: Cyhirae

Note: Yes, finally another Yuan fic, inspired after watching the Tales of Fandom with Kratos in it. There's a wealth of info on Yuan in those too. Plenty that still isn't though; like when/how exactly the Renegades were created and when Botta joined up. This is taking place shortly after Yuan has been informed of Botta's demise.

And NO, it's not a pairing fic. After staying devoted to the same woman for 4,000 years, I have my doubts Yuan's going to go hooking up with anyone else- particularly another _man._ (Don't get me wrong; I've nothing against shounen-ai/yaoi but only when it suits the characters. O.o; )

--

The base is quiet around me. You would think a place with so many men and women in it would be unbearably noisy to my ears, yet there is only the hum of machinery with only the occasional clacking of armored feet through the hall outside as the regular patrol passes by. Nothing demands my attention right now...things are hanging in the balance as we wait for word of what is to come.

Should they succeed, this base will be evacuated; there will be no further need for it or any cause to leave the Renegades where Cruxis' forces could simply walk in and take them down as they please.

As such...there is nothing to distract me from the pages that sit on my desk. Crisply printed and sterile, all of the words on them mean nothing to me. The only pertinent ones now are on the last page of the stack and will not change, no matter how many times I look at them.

_All Renegades who had entered the underwater facility died._ There were a list of names of course; only one, at the top of the list, mattered to me as anything more than a statistic, however.

Botta.

After four thousand years, you would think this sort of thing became easier. Half elves only lived a thousand years...and few ever saw the full expanse of that time. If they did not die at the hands of humans or one another...they generally met their ends through hardships no one wished to ease. For a people who could live so long, it was rare any saw the half way point.

As such...you would really think this had become easier. Yet as I stand in the Sylvarant Base and look at a particular room here, another there through the monitors...I can't help but admit it gets no easier. In the span of the ages I had lived, the Renegades were still a fairly new thing. My attempt to atone for having supported Mithos in creating this horrible ritual to resurrect Martel...and my way of keeping my own word to her.

She had left Mithos to us and look what we had done, what we had let him become. Kratos had resigned himself to this now, it seemed...but we had always been a very different sort there. Yet, I could not turn my hand directly against Mithos.

And so, Renegade after Renegade had died for me in that fight I could not enter into personally. I could make the excuse that it was all for stopping Cruxis; and it was an excuse in that it was only partially true. I simply couldn't break my word to Martel; to watch over and protect her brother. Perhaps I had not spoken it in so many words, but I am aware of what I had promised.

And now I've learned death can still touch me. My Renegades are as faceless as the Desians under their armor, but Botta had always been an exception. I don't know when I had begun to rely on him so much...not only to command the Renegades in my absence but to just be there- a face beyond Kratos and Mithos, and one I could actually trust.

Of all my Renegades, Botta alone had known the whole truth. I could count on him to stay loyal through all of the games Cruxis might try to play, where many of my less informed Renegades may turn against me with a well placed hint or twisted bit of information. Or perhaps even the truth. Kratos and I were cowards, to be frank; afraid to disappoint a memory of a woman who would have never approved of this madness and we had both had our hands bloodied multitudes of times by helping Mithos carry out that sick ritual time and time again.

Now, that was gone. Botta had gone on his mission, in that unwavering loyalty, and seen to it that the plan was carried out. He had even ensured that those who would still be useful against Cruxis in ways my Renegades could not be had survived to help continue it.

He and those Renegades with him had died to see my wishes fulfilled. And I can't look anywhere in the base and not see where he _should_ be. He should be standing before this desk, reporting on the success of the mission and where it had gone wrong. He should be at the monitoring station to tell me where Kratos' son and his personal circus had gone, now that there were no Human Ranches left for them to destroy and announce their presence at.

Botta should be anywhere but where he is: dead at the bottom of the ocean, unmourned by any but me.

Four thousand years ago, I might have understood why he made that choice. I had been a Knight of Sylvarant, loyal to my honor and my country for all it had shown me little in the way of thanks or reward. Yet I had been willing to court death again and again for them, taking to the field against Kratos of Tethe'alla. I had never received acknowledgment from either of them, and yet I had still kept trying.

I can barely recognize that memory as myself anymore. I cannot step back in time to become that Knight, to accept Botta's death as a heroic sacrifice. Back then I would have gathered the Knights of Sylvarant to mourn a fallen comrade. There would have been tears, speeches and promises made on the death to keep the memory alive even as he was laid to rest.

There were no speeches, no promises now; the Renegades simply accepted their losses as they always had and continued onward. There were no tears; the Renegades had enough hardship before even setting foot in the door of these bases to be hardened to such things.

I had shed my last tears millennia ago. Some things returned when the body and crystal settled into harmony with one another...but in some cruel joke, tears remained beyond my ability.

Death has touched me again for the first time in four thousand years, and I cannot cry for the loss of a man that would have done my Knights proud.

I could not even cry for the loss of a friend.

"...Be at peace, Botta." Those words are whispered to the empty spaces he should be filling; before me, before the monitors, wandering the halls on this or that business. "I will keep the promise I made to her, and you have helped me do it...Thank you."

Simple words I had never spoken to him in life. Now I never could.

"Farewell, my friend."


End file.
